Do fans still love heavyweight tilts?
Intensity of big scrap reignites debate whether to ban fighting in hockey
Fighting in the NHL has declined dramatically in recent seasons.
According to statistics on hockeyfights.com, only 18.9 per cent of games this season have had a fighting major on the scoresheet.
In 2017-18, 17.9 per cent of games had fights.
Compare that to five seasons ago (2013-14) when 29.8 per cent of NHL games had fights, or 10 seasons ago (2008-09) when it was at 41.4 per cent.
With the all-star break two weeks away, Ottawa’s Ben Harpur leads the league with five fights.
But if you are thinking that fighting in the NHL is becoming extinct, you may want to look at Tuesday night’s Ryan Reaves vs. Adam McQuaid fight. One commenter under the YouTube video of the battle referred to it as “Mayweather vs. McGregor of the NHL.”
The bout had more intense punches, over a shorter span, than you usually see. Neither player backed down, although Reaves overwhelmed McQuaid with a flurry of punches in the end.
“That was a heavyweight battle,” MSG broadcaster Sam Rosen said as the fight broke up.
Vegas forward Reaves is sixfoot-one, weighs 225 pounds and has 845 penalty minutes in his regular-season career. New York defenceman McQuaid is six-foot-four, weighs 210 and has 667 career penalty minutes.
One commenter offered that Reaves is “creeping” into the “all-time toughest fighters conversation.”
But from the broader perspective, this fight could be the centrepiece of the debate about fighting in the NHL.
There is a group of fans, evidenced by 161 comments, that enjoyed that scrap as an athletic event.
On the other side, there are a growing number of hockey insiders that would view the intensity of this fight as the reason why fighting should be banned as part of the continuing drive to prevent brain injuries.
Even though fighting is on a sharp decline, this debate is far from settled in the NHL.